Police Misidentified Missing Woman’s Body, Father Cremated Wrong Remains, Family Sues

Mark Crews buried the wrong body after Rochester police told him the remains found in a wooded strip along the 100 block of Hudson Avenue were his missing daughter, Shanice Crews. He held a memorial service and later had the body cremated, believing he was grieving a suspected drug overdose. Months later, a Facebook photo showed Shanice alive and volunteering in Detroit.

The family first reported Shanice missing in July 2021, after she left her two children with their paternal grandparents and cut off communication. In April 2024, police and the Monroe County Medical Examiner’s Office told Mark Crews that a body found in Rochester had been identified as Shanice through dental records by a forensic dentist. Because the body was badly decomposed, Crews could not visually confirm the identification before the family accepted the death notice and moved forward with funeral arrangements.

Then came the photo. In November 2024, a stranger sent the family an image showing Shanice in Detroit, along with a certificate dated that same month. The family pursued DNA testing after the shock discovery, and the testing later confirmed the cremated remains were not Shanice’s. What had been presented as a closed case became a devastating misidentification, with the family left to confront the loss of funeral money, a cremation, and months of emotional trauma built on a false death notification.

The lawsuit names the City of Rochester, the Rochester Police Department, Monroe County, and the Monroe County Medical Examiner’s Office. The family, represented by New York City attorney Daniel Neiger, is seeking compensation for funeral expenses and emotional distress. Neiger has said the claim is based on negligence rather than malice, centering the case on how the identification was made and why it was accepted without a DNA confirmation before the remains were released.

The case has also raised hard questions about forensic identification in decomposed remains, especially when authorities rely on dental records and a missing-person file without a living visual confirmation from family. In a separate 2026 court ruling, the New York State Supreme Court allowed the suit to move forward even though it had been filed after the initial statutory deadline, finding the defendants were not harmed by the delay. For the Crews family, the legal fight now follows a far more painful fact: the father cremated the wrong remains, while his daughter was still alive.